How much will Microsoft-Yahoo marriage change cyberspace?

Microsoft on Friday courted Yahoo with a 44.6-billion-U.S.-dollar merger offer, or 31 dollars per share.

It came after almost a year of debate and the realization that neither firm can take on the giant that is Google. Assuming the merger goes ahead, the Microsoft-Yahoo marriage looks far from being a bed of roses capable of taking on Google and reshaping cyberspace.

The online advertising market that Microsoft has been pursuing for years is one of the key goals of the takeover. In his letter to Yahoo’s board of directors, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer touted “significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics” as one of the key advantages of the acquisition.

Currently, Google is widely seen to be the technology and market leader in online advertising. According to estimates by Market space Advisory, a U.S. strategy consulting firm, 42 percent of online advertising business is dominated by Google while Microsoft, Yahoo, and Time Warner’s AOL combined have about the same percentage of the market.

Source: Xinhua News